Writing quotes
30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"I'm always writing ideas down and then I stick em in my pocket and put em in that folder so I don't lose them. Like, somebody might say something, and I'll go, oh that's a good line, and that goes in the folder, too. It's kind of an ongoing process for me."
"I started writing little short stories and poems as soon as I learned to read and write. I think I was six years old. And then when I got to be eleven, twelve, and into my teens, I was just listening to records all the time, and I got a guitar. I started to take guitar lessons when I was twelve."
"There's always stuff to write about. So it's very gratifying on a lot of levels. This is stuff I got asked over and over again, or heard about. People would ask me about it, but they kind of knew the answer. It would be this ongoing question: "Your fans are wondering, now that you're married, are you still going to be able to write songs?" I'm serious! I would get asked that!"
"People seemed to think, you get to a certain age or you get married or you, you're comfortable. And so now there's nothing to write about: that angst is gone. The youthful angst. And that just hasn't happened with me."
"There's this whole idea that you've got the blues and you're going to write. Bullshit. When I feel really bad, all I want to do is sit in front of the TV with the remote control and check out."
"I don't keep a journal anymore. I did when I was a teenager, but now because I write about it all in my songs, that's what I'm really doing."
"I usually don't write about my life right when it happens. I process it, and I store it away. Then, when I get in the mood I pull the stuff back out."
"Sometimes I dream song ideas. I write a song in my dream, the melody and everything. But then sometimes I can't remember them. I think later on, I probably do."
"You can't be afraid to deal with your demons. You've got to go there to be able to write."
"Honestly, when you start talking about genres, you're talking as much about the business side of writing as anything else. Certainly there are elements of reader expectation that play into various genres, and those are important, but it also becomes about packaging, placement, audience....In the end, I'm not a fan of labels. I think the best fiction blurs the boundaries between genres, stretches and breaks them."
"I can be a little OCD when it comes to my writing."
"Hands down, the hardest part for me is coming up with an idea. I spend about 14 months writing a book, and that's a lot of hours spent thinking about a single project. I simply have to love the idea. I'll go through dozens of workable ideas until I find the one that lights my fire."
"Once it happened, as I lay awake at night, that I suddenly spoke in verses, in verses so beautiful and strange that I did not venture to think of writing them down, and then in the morning they vanished; and yet they lay hidden within me like the hard kernel within an old brittle husk."
""For even the most childish intoxication with progress will soon be forced to recognize that writing and books have a function that is eternal. It will become evident that formulations in words and the handling on of these formulations through writing are not only important aids but actually the only means by which humanity can have a history and continuing consciousness of itself.""
"Among the letters my readers write me, there is a certain category which is continuously growing, and which I see as a symptom of the increasing intellectualization of the relationship between readers and literature."
"Dialogue saves me. I love writing the conversations between my paper people. For some reason, that is the easiest thing for me. It's like I am a transcriptionist for the voices in my head. I can hear them talking (mentally) and have a gift for getting it on the page."
"My experiences always influence my writing, but usually only on an emotional level. I have experienced death of a family member and it's easy to dredge up those feelings and get them on the page."
"The editing process is a necessary evil. I can write until the cows come home but it is all garbage until it gets edited."
"I think I have always wanted to tell stories. My mother was the real catalyst. I kept talking about it and so she pulled out a story I wrote (and illustrated) back in elementary school. She used that as proof that I should be writing and had been doing so unconsciously for years."
"Actually, time and time again people always come back to my early, more innocent stuff, and say, "I kind of prefer that." I could go back to writing that and probably make more people happy, but it just doesn't feel like the right thing to do. I don't want to take the lazy route."
